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Current Events In Education

How To Solve Percentage Questions On The ASVAB Without A Calculator

April 28, 2022 Comments Off on How To Solve Percentage Questions On The ASVAB Without A Calculator

As part of your military application process you will be required to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery or ASVAB. While this exam covers many different topics, many students seem to struggle with math concepts the most given that you are not allowed to use a calculator. And so questions that would appear quite easy are suddenly very difficult to solve.
Once such topic is calculating percentages. In this article I will show you a shortcut to save you time and help you figure out the correct answer for a standard percent type question.
Picture this ASVAB style question:
1/8 is equal to approximately what percent value?
a) 8%
b) 10%
c) 22%
d) 13%
At first glance the question seems impossible. Let’s discuss the long and short way to solve this question.
The Long Way
The long way requires setting up an equation where (1/8) = (x/100) so that x is the value we are trying to solve for. You can write out this formula, the cross multiply to solve for x. This requires multiplying both sides by 100 to isolate ‘x’ leaving you with a new equation: x = 100 / 8. Then comes the long and tedious part. You have to draw out the long division to calculate 8 into 100 which may take you a good 30 seconds to a full minute. But you should wind up with the correct answer of 12.5 which is close enough to 13 and thus choice ‘d’
The Simpler And Faster Way
The quicker way to solve ASVAB style math questions is to find the approximate value through rounding and simplification. This will allow you to rule out the incorrect answer choices so that you can guess the correct answer by the process of elimination.
Since the number 8 is relatively close to 10, we can simplify this equation to read 1/10 which is 10%
This is found by multiplying both the top and bottom by 10, all in your head.
Therefor 1/10 is the same as 10/100 which is 10%
HOWEVER we rounded to get 10% which means that the answer choice giving you 10% is incorrect. Rule that out. And since we had to make the number BIGGER to get 10% any number smaller than this value will also be incorrect
If our answer has to be greater than 10% then both choice (a) 8% and choice (b) 10% can be ruled out
We are now left with just 2 choices, and still haven’t put pen to paper for calculations.
Since a small rounding gave us 10% our answer is expected to be close enough. 13% is a close value, 22% is a much larger value, but let’s justify this further
22% can be written as 22/100. This number is very close to 20/100.
Since both 20 and 100 end in at least one zero, these cancel leaving you with 2/10 which further simplifies to 1/5. Keep in mind that we rounded the number down, meaning the actual answer is really somewhere between 1/4 and 1/5
Now let’s apply a final bit of quick logic, ALL STILL IN YOUR HEAD
1/5 is close to 1/8 but THREE whole numbers away.
1/10 is a bit closer to 1/8 and comes from our previous rounding efforts. Therefor we expect the number 1/8 to be closer to 1/10 meaning closer to 10% and so we rule out choice (c) at 22% and instead settle with (d) 13% as the correct answer
Now it may appear that this line of thinking involved a great deal of steps to come to a conclusion, but that’s only because the steps had to be explained. If you keep practicing this way you will realize that this is a much faster way to solve percentage problems

Quality Education

Productivity and Innovation – 5 Critical Questions Every Business Owner Should Ask

April 25, 2022 Comments Off on Productivity and Innovation – 5 Critical Questions Every Business Owner Should Ask

I was speaking with a friend and fellow business owner a short time ago who’s going through some growth transition issues. He’s improved his customer service practices and a key employee just couldn’t embrace the changes and keep up.

After waiting too long (his words) he reluctantly made the needed change and replaced a long standing employee with a new person. He has a small business with only 6 employees so any personnel issue has huge ramifications. All in all he did a great job smoothing the exit of the employee and allowing for the relatively easy entrance of the replacement.

About a week into things he called the new employee in and gave him a ‘project’. The mission was simple, pay very close attention to the business process, work flow, communication both with clients and in the office and look for problems, issues and bottlenecks. This is a great idea for any of us. He basically recruited his new employee to function as an internal consultant looking at his business with ‘new eyes’. Now realize that this is not a witch job is to look at practices and policies not to spy on fellow co-workers and then tattle.

I suggested that he expand this practice one more step and I shared with him an idea that I’ve used, as a consultant in company after company that I’ve worked with but also as a technique that I’ve used to grow my own businesses.

Ask the 5 Critical Questions.

The process is simple, simply sit down with your employees, ideally one on one, and out of the office for a candid discussion. The larger the company the harder this is to do, so in large companies small groups of 5-10 people might be the best you can do. In a small business, coffee, lunch, breakfast, any 30-45 minute session works. This is not an excuse for dinner with the good looking employee and should never involve heading to a bar…I’ve found a diner works best. Let everyone know this is coming ahead of time so they aren’t shocked and let them know that you really want to hear from them, both the good and the bad.

Try to schedule all of the meetings in as short a period of time as possible to avoid ‘meeting cross contamination’. If not all of the usual stuff will crop up in water cooler talks, “What did you say?”, “What should we ask for?”, “What did he/she want to know?” Try to minimize this as much as possible if you want the best information.

Once you have the meeting, get to know your employee a little better and then ask the 5 Critical Questions…I have found that asking them in this order works you ask for good stuff first they’ll gloss over the bad stuff.

What are we as a company doing poorly?

What am I, or what is management, doing that gets in your way?

What are we as a company doing well?

What can I, or management do, do to make your job easier?

And the $Million dollar question… “If time and money were not factors, what would you STOP, START or CHANGE that can help us do better for our clients?’

He took my idea and in a period of three weeks was able to have a meeting with everyone. Part of the feedback about the process…”The level of communications with our employees is at an all time high, and both the volume of output has increased while the quality has increased exponentially at the same time. Another benefit is that all of our employees are finally taking ownership, freeing me to actually grow the business.”

Ideas that have come out of other companies who’ve tried it:

Wholesales changes to archaic customer service practices

Creation of project bid teams made up of marketing, sales and service reps to insure workable delivery deadlines

Changes to purchasing patterns resulting in significant cost savings

Employee/management teams that collaboratively created specs for capital equipment purchases

Creation of an award winning client service website

New and different marketing ideas

Development of new profit centers

A renewed sense of purpose after employees knew they were being listened to

Give it a shot, you have a lot to learn and you’ll have an opportunity to develop better relationships with your team.

You have nothing to lose, you have to eat anyway but trust me, the knowledge you’ll gain will make these meals some of the best money you’ve ever invested into your business.

Education Issues

Questions And Answers About Playing The Game Of Craps

January 12, 2022 Comments Off on Questions And Answers About Playing The Game Of Craps

Hollywood often uses the craps table when the scene calls for activity in a casino. The table is usually surrounded by excited gamblers, cheering when the roll of the dice proves to be a winner and letting out a collective moan when the shooter rolls a losing number. This game can be fun and disappointing all at the same time. Before losing big bucks in a game of craps you should get some tips and background information about the game from an ideal general knowledge website. General knowledge websites will have information about craps and other casino games in their questions and answers database.
The simplest way to start playing craps is to bet the pass line. What this means is, is that you wait until the shooter (the person rolling the dice) is done rolling and then place your money on the table and ask for chips. You then place your chips in the rack in front of you. Once you have decided the amount to bet, you will place the chips on the layout on the table in the area marked “pass”. When betting the pass line, it doesn’t matter whether you are the shooter or not. If the shooter rolls a seven or eleven, you win. If he rolls a two three or twelve you lose. Any other number becomes the point number. If the point number is rolled before a seven you win, if a seven is rolled first you lose. If neither number has been rolled, the shooter will continue to roll until the point number or a seven comes up.
There are names for specific types of rolls in Craps. What is an easy way in Craps? This is where if a 4, 6, 8, or 10 are rolled and the dice are not pairs. Another common term used at the craps table is the End of the Race bet. What is the end of the race in craps? This simply means that you are betting the next roll will be a 7.
By starting out with a front line bet, you can get your feet wet as you learn the nuances and rules of the game. What is a front line in craps? A front line bet is the casino term for the pass line. The two are often used interchangeably. With a front line bet, you are not required to actually roll the dice yourself; your bet is based on the roll of the dice regardless of who’s rolling. This way you can take more of a passive role to learn how the game is played. Once you feel comfortable with that, you can begin to make more complicated bets. Don’t risk too much that first time out and have fun! You can learn a lot of interesting facts about the game of craps and other popular subjects by browsing through the endless list of questions and answers on general knowledge websites.

Quality Education

Pub Quizzes – Writing Your General Knowledge Questions

October 20, 2020 Comments Off on Pub Quizzes – Writing Your General Knowledge Questions

Many pub quizzes fails because of the way in which the questions are written and the topics that are chosen. Some quizzes fail because they focus far too much on one particular topic, others because the questions are not challenging enough. Of course you don’t want to have to have a PhD in the topics to even be close to being able to answer the questions so get a good balance.

Below is a quick guide on what the quiz master should be looking for on quality questions and answers.

Most pub quizzes have a spread out age groups from different walks of life so be sure to accommodate the majority when setting your questions and answers.

Topics and Subjects. Most quizzes have general knowledge, handout and specialist topics rounds in them. General knowledge should be a wide variety of topics that covers general every day things and events. Picking the questions from different eras and topics in an even split is the best way. Look for History, Geography, Music, TV and Films and Science as a good grounding but also try to get some local themed questions as well. Questions of a particular subject should be kept set similar always taking into account where possible a difference of age group and interests. You should try and avoid the same people answering and enable the rest of team member to answer questions.

Difficulty of Questions. This is very important but generally the easiest way is make several questions that are easy, quite difficult and more tasking questions that way you get a nice selections within the quiz. When compiling the actual pub quiz split these up evenly in to general knowledge rounds. If doing a specialist topic then split the mix of question difficulty levels within the round.

Quality question and answers – Making questions enjoyable isn’t that difficult but you need to follow some simple rules.

Pub quiz teams should be able to discuss, argue and throw answers out to each other, they can be challenging but not impossible to guess. Make sure that when compiling questions you look at ways to make them chance of guessing when possible.

The question has to hold their interest if it doesn’t then the team members will more than likely not have a clue about the answer. If the team gets the answer wrong they will want to be able to go away with something new. Something they can quiz their friends with the next day or so.

Keep the questions in the public domain with seldom going into the realms of obscure. The more bizarre the questions the more likely you are to put quiz goers off coming again. Not to say you can’t have a couple spread about the quiz.

Hopefully this quick guide will help you compiling questions and answers for your pub quiz.